“Free System Projekt is undoubtedly the band that is the closest to the ambiences that Tangerine Dream imposed in concerts during their tours from 72 to 77”
1 Electronic Supplication 60:43
2 Anointed Waves 11:08
(CD/DDL 71:51) (V.F.)
(Berlin School)
It's always a little daring to propose a long non-segmented title that exceeds 60 minutes. Slow introductions, such as endings that no longer want to finish, and the bridges that make us go from one phase to another are all demotivating elements that often discourage those who want to understand our passion for EM. But that, Marcel Engels and Ruud Heij don't care royally. And with reason! Free System Projekt is undoubtedly the band that is closest to the ambiences that Tangerine Dream imposed in concerts during their tours from 72 to 77. Taciturn and chthonic ambiances that develop slowly to explode on rhythms carefully sculpted by sequencers and their dynamic rebellious lines; this is what is made of BRITISH WINGS Vol.1 (Vol 2 is expected soon) that comes to us this time in a CD pressing manufactured Groove nl. And for this occasion, the Dutch label adds a bonus track taken from the rehearsal sessions that preceded the show that FSP gave on May 17, 2008 in Leicester.
Rustling water and rushes of wooshh and waashh emerge from an introduction sewn into nebulosity. Electronic Supplication begins its 60-minute journey with a slow introduction where our ears sculpt the darkness of the improvised Berlin School. A slow pulsation emerges around the 9th minute. Its sneaky beat draws a floating pace in the darkness that a flute illuminates with a musical glow. Klaus Schulze's electronic effects, morphic violins and chthonian choirs get graft, as well as Stratosfear perfumes for a brief moment around the 15 minutes. The first roars of the sequencer are biting the ambience as soon as one slips into a mephistophelic cave. The rhythmic keys are nervous and jump in this disorder of oscillations which ends up carving a coherent and lively movement for the neurons. The pace is knotted around jerks and kicks that get intertwine in a delicious dangling fed of nuances in the permutations of the rhythm lines. Fog patches surround this stationary restlessness and get dissipate when synth solos fly over with aerial acrobatics and layers of chthonic voices which lead it back into a chasm of hot air around the 34 minutes. The second ambient phase of Electronic Supplication is filled with those breaths that gave Phaedra and Rubycon this sepulchral vision. This segment about the strengths and the weakness of gusts of underground winds lasts barely 6 minutes before two lines of bounding sequences clash in a frenetic rhythmic combat that will unify these two lines to create a pure and hard rhythm knotted in a series of ascending loops. Synth solos and harmonies of fog invade the curves of the sequencer which likes to alternate the speed and the number of its jumping keys. A slight stop and some stationary beats before this phase is reborn with a slight lack of vigor and that the rhythm gradually loses its keys up until the last evaporates in the mists. And it's in a finale that steals moments already known that Electronic Supplication gives way to Anointed Waves. This unreleased track that was never performed in concert is a segment focused on the sequencers' rhythms during the show. It's halfway between the speed of the two phases of rhythm in Electronic Supplication and in a setting almost identical to that which was heard the evening of May 17 in Leicester. This is some great Free System Projekt here with this album that travels in the breaches of time in order to give us a musical feast that renews itself of these wonderful golden years of EM.
Sylvain Lupari (October 15th, 2019) *****
Available at Groove nl.
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